An End To War
by Alexxus Anderson
Summary: The MutantHuman War has taken many lives. And one more is required for there to be peace. But will her death truly bring an end to war?
1. Peace Treaty

An End To War

Lenneth Essex brushed a thin strand of white hair out of her eyes as she climbed the stairs to the temple within the mountain. Reaching the plateau before the temple, she picked up several sticks of incense from beside the door and lit them. Then kneeling within the sanctuary, she crossed herself with the lines of smoke.

"God of Light, bless me as I kneel here before you," she began the classical prayer. "I seek the goodness of your guidance and a measure of your mercy."

A robed figure entered the sanctuary quietly and stood near the door watching the praying woman.

"Nathaniel," Lenneth's voice walked around the room on slippered feet. "I miss you. God can only tell you how much. This war makes me weary and wishful for the strength of your arms to hold me. We are losing, my love. The numbers of our dead are barely believable. What I wouldn't give to have you, Lensherr, Xavier, or even Frost here to help me. I feel like I'm sending babies out to protect what we have built. And it weighs heavy on my heart."

"Madame Essex," the watcher interrupted, his voice only slightly accented as he said the French word.

"Yes," she half turned to look at him, noting the slight twitch of his tail giving away his nervousness.

"The human ambassador has arrived. He's asking for you, according to Jean."

"He will have to wait," she replied wearily turning back to the large cross on the other side of the sanctuary. "Thank you very much though, Kurt."

"You are welcome. I will ask Jean if she minds entertaining him for a short while."

"Thank you, Kurt," she repeated with her back to him. He bowed once and left.

Slipping out of the sanctuary, Kurt teleported back down the mountainside to the primary base for the Mutant Nation. It would have been just as easy for Jean to mentally speak to their leader, but Madame Essex had made it clear that only news of the most urgent kind was to be transmitted to her in such fashion. Otherwise, it would have to be moved by word of mouth.

"How is she," asked Jean preparing a tea tray for their illustrious guest. "Do you think that she will agree to their demands?"

"I don't think so. These wars have cost her everything, including her husband and her children. Anything she agrees to will have to be worth the weight of those bodies and all the others that have been killed by the man-sents." Kurt lifted the tray off the table for Jean, following her toward the main conference room where the Ambassador and his entourage were awaiting Madame Essex's arrival. Their orders had been to make the Ambassador comfortable when he arrived and send word to the Madame immediately. This done; now they simply had to wait for her return.

Lenneth rose from her knees, bowing at the waist before piously crossing herself once again.

"Nathaniel, I will always love you. One day, I will be back by your side, but for now, I've got to make a deal with the devil for the lives of our people."

More than ten years had passed since the beginning of this war, one in a series that had seemed to be going on forever. Originally, it had been the Brotherhood against the X-men, until the human governments united and named all mutants outlaws. It was then that Master Lensherr and Master Xavier had come together and first begun the Mutant Nation. Following the first war came the creation of the man-sents, biomechanical nightmares that seemed able to neutralize mutant abilities from a distance and kill on contact.

What mutants could ran, finding refuge in the wilds of Australia. But nothing was ever allowed to prosper long. Now the human governments wished to negotiate peace, an end to the rounds of retaliation that had marred history for so many years.

The Mutant Nation had gone through many leaders: Lensherr, Xavier, two Summers, and a Frost, and then Master Essex. The last to fall, leaving behind only his Madame Essex and Madame Summers or Ms. Grey who had chosen not to step up as a leader because of her two young sons. Though many witnessed the death of Master Essex, no body was ever recovered, leaving behind some hope that perhaps he did manage, somehow, to survive. While awaiting his possible return, Madame Essex had become a true leader coordinating evacuations and military strikes with great precision. It was in her that many held their hope for the future.

Madame Essex refused to run down the stairs from the temple, despite the fact that she was late. It was better for her to arrive late and calm, then quickly and upset. Reaching the halls of the main complex, she nodded and acknowledged the few people walking the halls. They returned her acknowledgement by placing one hand over their heart. The conference room door was ajar when she stepped up to it.

"That _creature_," said someone from within hissing and spitting. "Must leave." Lenneth looked in through the crack and saw one older man brandishing a letter opener at Kurt. Jean was standing between the two, her hands held up as if to stop violence. Kurt was standing back, his posture defensive, though he would surely have sprung forward to attack if he were not so well in control of his temper. The tea tray sat in the middle of the table, untouched. Pushing open the door, Lenneth asked,

"Exactly what do you think you are doing?" Her words came out very clipped and precise in the tone of one who is used to being answered immediately. She stood in the doorway, her eyes moving from one face to another in the room as she awaited her answer.

"You send a demon to serve tea," snapped the man with the letter opener. After a few long moments of meeting her gaze, he turned to his ambassador, an older man who wore his white hair clipped military short. "Ambassador Bryant…"

"Sit down, Eric," was the Ambassador's command as he reached for a teacup. "A pleasure to see you again, Madame Essex," he said conversationally. "I must say that white hair becomes you." His aide sat down in his chair once again, though he kept the letter opener close at hand and refused his teacup when it was offered.

"Nicholas Bryant," Lenneth identified the Ambassador by his full name. "I suppose they sent you because of our history?"

"I suppose that could have something to do with it, but I doubt it. I'm still rather upset about you leaving without so much as a note." Jean poured his tea and he took a slow sip. "An absolutely lovely Earl Grey, how do you get this out here?"

"I won't tell, Bryant," replied Lenneth, still standing in the doorway looking at the assembled.

"Ah well. Then I suppose we should get down to business then."

A small body squeezed past the woman standing in the doorway with a cry of,

"Papa!" A little girl, her tan and blue striped fur, neatly groomed down to her bushy, rather squirrel-like, tail hopped up into Kurt's waiting arms. Leaning over, she kissed Jean on the cheek.

"Eliza," said Kurt. "You should be with Scott and Mark."

"I know, Papa," said the little girl with a grin. "But I wanted to see the funny people." She pointed at the two men in military uniforms standing at attention behind the Ambassador's seat.

"Well, now you've seen. Go play." Kurt put her down on the floor and with a swat from his tail sent her running from the room.

"Kurt," said Lenneth as she sat down at the table. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to. You either Jean."

"I'll stay right here where my duty demands, Madame Essex," came his formal reply.

"I shall as well, Madame," seconded Jean.

"Fine, then be seated and let these gentlemen get their own tea."

Once the seven people had taken up their respective positions either at the table or near it, the Ambassador began with his long spiel about the war and the toll it was taking on both the human and the mutant population. After several minutes of him not getting to the point, Lenneth tapped the fingers of her right hand on the table, bringing him to a stop.

"As much as I love to hear legalese and justifications for this and that action, that isn't why we are here today. So why don't you get down to the real meat of this meal?"

Bryant cleared his throat meaningfully and started again.

"Well then, to begin, the human government that I represent is willing to suspend all anti-mutant activity both within and without our borders for two non-negotiable concessions." He stopped. The three faces of his intended audience didn't move; each stared at him without so much as eyelash twitch. He continued on. "The continent of Australia will become the first Mutant state. Those who are already here, do not leave and any mutant currently hiding in the human territories is going to be allowed to move here in order to be amongst their brethren." Still there was no reaction.

"Second," prompted Lenneth after he remained silent for several seconds. Ambassador Bryant appeared to be studying her face, either to remember her better or to see any change in what she was once. Again he cleared his throat, this time shuffling papers in front of him until one official looking document was on top. It carried the former seal of the Presidency of the United States of America, now the head of the Human government. He read verbatim from the paper before him then.

"The mutant leader known as Madame Essex must, upon the signing of this treaty, turn herself over to the authorities of the United Human government to face charges of war crimes against Humanity."

"War crimes against humanity," repeated Kurt, his yellow eyes wide with disbelief.

"Are your leaders going to pay for what has been done to us," questioned Jean, her face nearly turning the color of her hair.

Lenneth silenced them both with upraised hands; her own eyes dark, but otherwise showing no reaction at all to the presented information.

"Ambassador Bryant," her voice crept across the table between them. "You have given us much to consider. I hope you don't mind surviving on our meager hospitality overnight while we consider your government's demands." She then turned to Jean. "Please take them to some of the empty rooms, Ms. Grey."

"Yes, Madame Essex," replied Jean. "If you gentlemen would follow me." The red-haired mother walked out, the four men of the Ambassador's entourage following along behind her. Leaving only Kurt and Lenneth alone in the conference room.

"You are seriously considering this," exclaimed Kurt slamming his fists down on the table.

"Yes, Kurt, I am," Lenneth steepled her fingers in front of her, a pose that made her look rather like Master Xavier when he was contemplating his own plans of action. "I would love for Eliza's education to no longer include what kinds of planes carry what kind of munitions. If my life is the price, then pay it I shall."

"What guarantee do we have that they will uphold their treaty," countered Kurt.

"None, but just a chance at peace is worth everything. Too many of us have lost everyone that means anything. You are raising Eliza without Antoinette. Jean has lost her husband, Scott, and her son, Nathan. I've lost Nathaniel and all my children. And that is just us three, what of the hundreds of others under our care? Tell me that you wouldn't do anything to make it stop, Kurt?"

"But we need you, Madame Essex. Your leadership is the only thing some of us have left to believe in. The only thing that Jean and I have left to believe in."

"Kurt," Lenneth looked at the blue man letting her apprehension come into her eyes for the first time in the conversation. "I want you to tell everyone that when the Ambassador's team prepares to leave, I want this site evacuated."

"Why?"

"Because I wouldn't be surprised if they try to overrun this position as soon as they have me in custody." She stood up next to him and threw an arm over his shoulders. "Go play with your daughter, Kurt. She will want to be with you after such a dismissal. But be sure to pass the word along, won't you?"

Kurt snapped to attention for a moment, his three fingered hand saluting her in the old military fashion before he teleported out to the grass beyond the conference room windows. Lenneth turned around and walked out, careful not to betray her fear to those walking the hallways of the compound.

Jean was leaning up against the wall next to Lenneth's door when she reached her private quarters.

"Kurt and I just had this conversation, Ms. Grey. Don't you think you should be spending time with your remaining sons?"

"Actually, I didn't come to question your decision to surrender. That is your decision. I wanted to know your history with the Ambassador, the two of you seemed awfully friendly."

"We were, a long time ago." Madame Essex offered Jean a chair as they entered her apartment. It was nothing compared to the estate that she had once owned, but it was comfortable enough. "Ambassador Bryant was Nicholas Bryant Esquire of Hambesham, Bryant, and Nicoles in London. I was a much younger woman then, looking for someone to make me feel better since Nathaniel and I had just had a bit of a row. Rather like that short tryst you had with Master Lensherr before he died."

Jean colored under the reference.

"No need for embarrassment, Jean. A woman has a right to her body and to her affections. She may bestow them where she sees fit. Anyway, Mr. Bryant and I slept together over a few week period. Then I received the customary letter from my real love and abandoned Bryant rather like a puppy."

"So they sent your jilted former lover to negotiate a treaty?"

"There doesn't appear to be much negotiation involved." Lenneth fixed herself a drink. "They want two things: to confine us to this continent and to kill me."

"You are going to agree," Jean sounded somewhat downcast.

"I hesitate," said Lenneth with a sick voice. Her grip on her glass tightened until it cracked. "Nathan gave his life for freedom and I hesitate to give mine. I have buried five children for this cause, why not myself?"

"No one wants to die," offered Jean quietly.

"If I don't agree, the killing continues. If I do, there is a good possibility that it will still continue." A single tear rolled down the leader's face. "But one has to risk everything in a reach for hope. I've asked Kurt to make preparations for a complete evacuation of this site."

"I know. Word travels quickly. Are you sure?"

"Yes. I would rather err toward caution than away. If the usual minds are doing the planning, as soon as I'm in custody, they will raze this area to the ground. At least if we are prepared, more lives will be saved. Make sure that Wanda, Lorna, Alex, Ororo, and Remy are ready to cover the evacuation. You and Kurt will be in charge."

"You are serious about doing this, giving up your life?"

"One cannot waver. I will die on my feet with my head held high, proud of the name that I carry with me to my grave."

A long moment sauntered between them before Lenneth gulped down her drink.

"Don't you think you had better get back to your boys before dinner?"

"Yeah," Jean got up and started to walk out. "Nathaniel would be proud of you, you know."

"Perhaps. I suppose I shall get a chance to ask him all too soon." Jean left the lady leader of the Mutant nation sitting in the dark, alone with all too clear memories of the family she no longer had.

Raven, Nicholas, Joshua, Madonna, and Billie: all dead, right along with their father. She had pictures of the children scattered throughout her personal effects, but none of her husband. But her memories of him were hardly tarnished by time. The way he had held her to his heart when he thought that she was going to die from her injuries during that disastrous raid on a mutant internment camp in Africa. For a moment, it seemed as if he would even shed a tear over her body. After that, he had stopped staying in his lab for days at a time, instead coming back to lie down next to her, even if he didn't sleep. In a single breath, she cursed the god that had separated them and wished for his arms to hold her tight on what might be her last night alive. But as she had for years, she slept alone.

"You have come to a decision," asked Bryant as the group gathered in the conference room the next morning.

"We are not left with many options, Ambassador Bryant," said Kurt. "However, before we agree to anything, perhaps you can tell us what guarantee we have that the United Human government will their word and leave us in peace?"

"You doubt our words, you blue freak? It is you we should be asking that question," offered Eric. Kurt didn't flinch before the vehemence of the aide's words.

"My second brings up a good point. You offer us an unguaranteed peace at the price of imprisonment and a life. Excuse us for considering your offer rather dubious. After all, it was your government that assassinated Master Xavier."

"Charles Xavier," said Bryant in a huffy voice, "was a terrorist who had been warned against approaching any of the world leaders. He was killed for that violation. As regrettable as that was."

"An unarmed man, Bryant," asked Jean.

"When is a mutant unarmed," replied Bryant. Eric smirked as if that were some great point. "So do we have a deal or not," the Ambassador asked.

"You have a deal, Bryant, I am prepared to surrender immediately, so long as your government upholds its promise to leave us in peace," said Lenneth.

"It is nice to know good sense reigns amongst you. I couldn't even begin to think bout trying to broker a peace agreement with the famous Master Lensherr."

_If Magnus were still alive, you wouldn't be here_, broadcast Jean. Lenneth put one hand on her forearm and shook her head.

"I trust you all will give me some time to say my good-byes?"

"Of course," agreed Bryant.

Lenneth used the time she had to say her good-byes to make sure that the evacuation plans were fully in place. Hugs were given all around; a few tears were shed. The truth of her departure had spread with the preparation for the site abandonment, so the halls were nearly lined with those wanting to say goodbye. In the courtyard central to the compound, she began her final address.

"You all know that I am leaving. I will not hide the truth from you about why. I go to pay with my life for our peace. I pray that mine will be the last claimed by this conflict. Finally, the cause that so many have strived for and died for will be realized. We will be able to live in peace and safety. A cause worthy of the lives that it has claimed," she finished quietly though the words carried among the assembled on the shared breath.

The two military fellows flanking the Ambassador offered a set of manacles to Lenneth. She looked from them to Bryant and said,

"Do you really expect me to wear those things?"

"No," he chuckled. "I suppose I don't. If you really want to resist, those will hardly hold you." Bryant waved them away. "Come along then, Madame Essex," he offered her his arm. She took it as a lady would and allowed him to lead her to the transport that would take her back to Washington D.C. Once she was loaded and driven away, Kurt raised his voice to the assembled.

"You know your orders, get moving."

When the expected attack came, the compound and its outlying settlements were completely deserted. Bryant confronted Lenneth where she sat on a plane over the Pacific Ocean.

"You told them to evacuate?"

"Of course," she said with a smile. "Do you really think I would believe that my death would bring an end to war?"


	2. Sharing a Cell

Chapter 2: Reunion

Ambassador Bryant's reaction told Lenneth everything she needed to know about the site evacuation when he began to curse under his breath. She could just barely hear his voice as he walked back to the cockpit saying,

"Now we'll be stuck wasting more valuable man hours trying to root out those vermin."

The leader of the Mutant Nation chuckled. Jean and Kurt would stay more than far enough ahead even without her assistance. Turning her head, Lenneth looked out over the beauty that was the Pacific Ocean. The sky was a clear blue over the softly rolling water. Apparently, it was going to be a very pretty day.

The landing in D.C. went as had been previously planned, a heavily armored escort vehicle complete with one of the smaller man-sents awaited the group as they disembarked from the small aircraft.

"Your carriage, Madame," said Eric in the most mocking tone he could muster as he held the door for the prisoner.

"Oh thank you, geeves," replied Lenneth stepping into the vehicle. She flashed his angry face a lovely smile as he slammed the door behind her. "You really are going to have to do something with the help," she commented to Bryant a few minutes later. The bewildered look on his face was well worth her laughter in her estimation.

With the car windows tinted the deepest black and mirrored to the inside, it was impossible to see the scenery as the transport zoomed down the road.

"Where are you taking me," she asked Bryant after an hour of stiff silence.

"A private holding facility. You will remain there through your trial, so there is a good chance it will be the last place that you see alive." Bryant once again fell silent, leaving her to whatever thoughts occupied her mind at the time.

Lenneth allowed herself to doze, uncaring of being watched. She was going to prison again. She would be monitored 24/7 there, so what did it matter that her former lover got to watch her sleep for the first time in more than 20 years?

"We need to do something. She was right about the Human government. They didn't keep their words, so why should we keep ours?"

"I understand your feelings, Jean. I agree with them. But we cannot risk exposing this location prematurely. She gave her life to give us hope. How stupid would we be to throw that away on a rescue mission for her when we cannot even be sure that she is still alive?"

Kurt sighed, his eyes studying the woman who despite two young sons had chosen to reclaim her husband's name and become Madame Summers, a leader of the Mutant Nation. He still chafed at the title of Master Wagner, but it was his due as a leader. If only Antoinette had survived to see his ascension. But if she had survived, it was possible that he would not have risen at all.

"First," he said to Jean for perhaps the hundredth time. "We find out if she still lives. Then we consider rescue missions. Only fools would choose to rush in without the necessary information. So we must not let our feelings make fools of us."

The redheaded telepath could only nod her agreement as her son, Mark, burst into the room, Eliza bounding along behind. The two, once more, set upon each other as children do and Kurt went, with a wry smile on his lips, to break them up.

From the aftertaste of chemicals in the air, Lenneth could tell that the building in which she was being housed had once been some kind of laboratory. Her days were then filled with cataloguing the various odors and tallying up the possible creations from their combinations. She kept all of this written on the walls of her cell in fine print with a small marker. Her guards occasionally stopped to look at her work, though it meant nothing to them since most of them had never even graduated from high school.

"You could at least bring me a dry erase board and some decent whiskey," she said when Ambassador Bryant dropped by to inquire after her accommodations.

"How about a cellmate to share those formulas with?"

"Oh," her mouth formed the letter, eyes narrowing. "Who?"

"They will be here tomorrow, Madame. Might I suggest that you be a lady and be patient."

"One or the other, Nicholas," she said familiarly. "But surely not both at the same time."

"There was a time when I missed your wit…"  
"And here I thought you craved my company because I introduced the Karma Sutra into your gray flannel life." She leaned against the bars, her arms dangling on the outside, fingers just inches from Bryant's jacket. "Do you still dream of me, Nick old boy, and how I used to make you clutch the sheets," she asked in a husky whisper.

"Ladies don't talk this way," he said, taking a hurried step back, though part of him pointed forward.

"I told you, Nick, one or the other and I've chosen to be patient."

Breakfast consisted of a bit of wheat toast, previously buttered and smothered in strawberry preserves, and a cup of pure Columbian coffee, or it would have been Columbian if there were still a Columbia. She could hear the footsteps of the guards long before she saw them. Unperturbed, Lenneth scraped some of the preserves off the bread fully intending to give the person who came for the tray her opinion on what a decent breakfast consisted of and how gobs of preserves did not figure into it when two guards stopped in front of her cell with a hooded man between them.

"You've a cellmate now, Madame," sneered one of the guards as the other unlocked the door. The speaker then pushed the hooded man into the cell, driving him to his knees. "You two monsters get along nice now, you know," was his parting shot. The two guards were then gone; going about whatever duties they happened to have other than watching her write on the walls all day.

"I'd say welcome, except I doubt your being here is any happier an occasion than mine. So I shall assume the usual pleasantries unnecessary."

"As are the usual formalities," said the man reaching up to take off his hood. "Lenneth," he greeted her.

For years, Lenneth Essex had slept alone, finally faithful to her husband in death as she had not been in life. For years, she had wished and hoped for his safe return. Now he was standing before her. The piece of toast she had been holding was completely forgotten as she walked over to him and hit him hard enough to make the bars shudder as he impacted them.

With a grunt, Nathaniel Essex picked himself up and straightened his slightly rumpled shirt.

"I suppose I deserved that," he conceded in a low voice.

"Be glad I'm too happy to see you to hit you again, you bastard," she practically snarled. Then they were together, bodies and lips pressed tight.


	3. Normal

Chapter 3: Normal?

Several hours later…

Nathaniel and Lenneth sat on the floor of their combined cell, him with his back against the wall and her with her head in his lap. He was absently curling her long white hair through his fingers.

"You stopped darkening it," he asked with a faint smile in his voice.

"It was a bit of vanity I felt was unnecessary with my life as a widow," she replied, turning her eyes to take in his face more fully. "What did they do to you?"

"Apparently," he began with his clinical lecturing tone. "When they neutralized my powers, my appearance reverted to what you currently see before you. The human I once was. You no longer find me handsome?"

"You will always be the very picture of a god to me, no matter what your look. Though, I must admit to finding something dashing about your powder white face and eyes the color of rubies," Lenneth admitted. "Tell me how you survived and what happened to our son," she asked.

"Nicholas died, I'm afraid, Lenneth. I was captured and placed in prison as a war criminal. But I could not be tried until the war was officially over."

"Until the peace treaty was signed," she said with a note of defeat.

"Yes."

"So I signed our death warrants?"

"Yes, my love, you did." He leaned down and kissed on the forehead, a piece of his carefully pulled back hair sliding across her face. She certainly did not miss the inherent mockery in the way he said, 'my love'. It had always been a joke between them. She knew full well that his work was his love. She was just his wife.

"Nathan," she turned her face from his. "I was a fool. I believed that what I was doing was right."

"Is it true that you called for an evacuation following your surrender?"

"I didn't trust them to keep their word…" she let the sentence hang between them. He let his mouth quirk up at the edges.

"Then you are certainly no fool." He smoothed her hair away from her face and around her ear. "Besides if you had not come, I certainly would have gone mad alone in that cage. Your company is certainly better than that of my guards."

"Even given my previous indiscretions," she had never gotten a chance to ask for his forgiveness, his disappearance had simply been too sudden.

"I never considered them such, especially not when they furthered my ends. However, that man, Bryan, is asking for me to rip out his throat."

"Bryant, Nathan," Lenneth quietly corrected. "I take it that he's been rubbing your nose in it?"

"Yes, but I had to remind him," the look on his face was a devil's grin.

"Of what," she asked, curious.

"I had you first. I had you last. And you never showered after leaving me."

"I suppose that twisted his knickers a bit."

"I enjoyed the look on his face immensely."

"You can be a very evil man, Nathaniel Essex."

"No more so than my wife," he countered.

"According to the report that Morph is sending in, Madame Essex is alive and being held in a former military facility an hour or so outside of Washington D.C. Also, you won't believe what else he says, Master Essex is alive as well and has been transferred to the same facility," summarized Jean from a sheet of paper.

"Master Essex," said Kurt in disbelief. "Alive, after all this time?" It was apparent from his tone that while he found this news quite interesting, it was also somewhat distasteful. Perhaps he thought it would have been better if they had simply been rid of the powerful mutant leader.

"According to Morph and you know he wouldn't be kidding about something this important. Or someone who has caused him that much pain."

"Well, if they are both in a single place, it should not be so hard to get someone to go in after them. But when?"

"We don't have a whole lot of time. They're going to be tried as war criminals and then executed."

"So we must move quickly. Was Morph able to provide any more information?"

"He sent us maps of the facility and its surrounding area. I was already checking for possible spots to land the Blackbird."

"Good. A team of three: Katherine Pryde, Remy LeBeau, and… I only hope I can convince her."

"Who?"

"My mother, Raven Darkholme."

"Oh," was Jean's somewhat stunned reply. "She and Madame Essex are certainly not the best of friends."

"I know, but I pray that she can see past that."

"We can only hope."

Nathaniel Essex looked down at the woman who had fallen asleep beside him, his mouth once again curling into something of a smile. He brushed the edges of her lips with his fingertips, admiring the fact that her body showed no signs of the experiments had done on her so many years ago. It fascinated him, her ability to heal, her complete control over seemingly every aspect of her body. Control he had helped her achieve. His smile lit up, that body intrigued him so. His physical needs were few and far between but she would do anything to satisfy him.

And a few things to try him. The memory of her making the apparently quite unthought out decision to sleep with young Remy Lebeau came easily to mind. He shoved it away, letting his eyes wander over that unmarked skin, skin he had split and pulled back on many an occasion to ease his displeasure over some project that didn't go as he had wished. "Perhaps I should have regrets for what I do to you," he mused aloud, his eyes betraying that he felt absolutely no regret of any kind for anything he had ever done to her.

"If you did that, you'd not be the man I married," she muttered sleepily. "Hush, Nathan, and regret nothing." She kissed him under the chin. "I knew when I said 'I do' to you that I was marrying a man who would sacrifice it all, including himself to his ambitions. And that was one of the things that made you everything I wanted." Lazily, she unbuttoned his shirt with one hand. Caressing his collarbone, she remarked,

"I miss your white skin. But I suppose this will do for now. Do you think you have the same stamina without your enhancements?"

"We," he said drawing her face to his. "Will find out soon enough." He kissed her mouth fully. Breaking away, she nibbled at his neck, all too aware of the video cameras embedded in the walls around the room.

Ambassador Nicholas Bryant couldn't get over how beautiful Lady Essex was with hair the color of summer clouds, or the way her lips curled into an oh as she clawed into her husband's back. She had never been so truly animalistic with him that he could remember. He had watched the tape of their late night lovemaking seven times, each time wishing it was him that she was biting.

The lady was away in the shower when Bryant approached Essex who was drinking his morning tea and reading the Times.

"She's quite the pistol," said Bryant, a lame attempt to begin a conversation with the prisoner. All he got was a mildly amused, yet utterly disdainful look from the cell occupant. "You know, if I decided to look the other way, every guard in this facility could easily have their way with her."

"Assuming Lenneth would allow it. It isn't as if she's a defenseless debutante. She's kills quite well, I understand, and quite painfully." Essex's conversational tone made that particular piece of information much more chilling. The fact that he didn't even look up from his paper when he said it; only heightened the fact that to him it was nothing of consequence. Bryant was quickly having to reevaluate what he understood about these two.

"Why don't you be honest, Mr. Bryant," said Essex folding up his paper with a couple of slight crinkles. "You watched us last night and it reminded you of what you were missing at home with your own darling wife. Now perhaps you would like for my wife to give you one last good roll in the hay as the Americans so quaintly put it." He laid the discarded paper on the floor. "You're talking to the wrong Essex," Nathaniel picked up his teacup. "If she's interested," he sipped his tea. "She very well might. But as you have nothing to offer, I severely doubt it."

Both men looked down the hallway as the lady in question walked toward them, flanked by two well-armed guards. Though fully dressed it was obvious that she was a woman who stole men's hearts and then broke them, viciously. The guards opened the cell door for her, let her in, locked it back, acknowledged Bryant with a salute, and left. Leaving Bryant looking at the two prisoners with eyes reminiscent of the painting where the man is screaming at the onlooker.

"Darling," Lenneth Essex greeted her husband with what looked like a cold kiss.

"Mr. Bryant has chosen to join us for breakfast." Nathan ran his fingers through her still wet hair. "He has a proposal for you, I believe. He attempted to discuss it with me, but you know how little I have to do with whom you give your favors to."

"I can think of one Master Nur who would call you a liar, Lord Essex," she returned with what sounded like a chuckle. "But that is a story for another time." She dragged her fingertips across her lover's face as she turned to look at Bryant. Arching one delicate eyebrow at him, she asked,

"And exactly what kind of proposition were you discussing with my husband?"

"I was just making conversation. You were the only thing that we happened to have in common."

"Oh really," she walked up to the bars and half turned so that he was looking at her profile, her hair drawing his eyes down to the front of her shirt, open enough to reveal her chest. "Was that all?"

Bryant swallowed audibly. She simply smiled at his discomfort.

"So much the pity," she stuck her lower lip out in a pout.

Nathan held his teacup up in front of his face, though it wasn't completely large enough to cover his amusement at his wife's performance.

"Are you sure he had a proposal for me, Nathan," her own amusement crept into her voice so subtly a listener would have had to be listening for it to hear it.

"It appears I am guilty of misunderstanding our jailer, my love. You will forgive?"

"Of course," she followed it up with a perfectly vapid, girlish giggle that caused certain parts to jiggle. "Anything for you, lover boy." An exaggerated wink and blown kiss made the whole thing so perfect that Sinister nearly laughed at her antics in front of her victim. But he managed to keep his composure waiting for Mr. Bryant to tire of being the ass of his wife's joke. It didn't take long for the Ambassador to walk away, attempting, unsuccessfully, to hide the physical reaction that Lenneth inspired in him.

"Well," she turned back to her husband. "That was a right gas, wasn't it, Nathan?" She sat down across from him and picked up the discarded paper.

"Indeed it was," he continued drinking his tea despite the snide laughter he was keeping in check. "Perhaps you should have given him what he wanted, he could have died happy." The condescension with which he made that remark would have been obvious even to the undereducated louts responsible for watching over the jailed couple.

"Honestly, I would prefer for him to just _die_," Lenneth's opened the paper with a snap.


	4. The Effects of Boredom

Kurt Wagner stood outside of the room his mother lived in, poised to knock on the door. A dozen different scenarios passed through his head as he tried to figure out exactly what he was going to say to her to try and persuade her to take on this suicide mission. There was no way that he could gloss over the fact that going into U.S. airspace was liable to get anyone involved killed, if not captured and experimented on. And he was about to ask her to risk her neck for someone whom she had never trusted or cared for. An uphill battle at best.

He knocked on the door and was greeted with a quick command to enter, which he obeyed without a word. Mystique Darkholme was standing in the center of the room looking at a piece of art that Kurt recognized as having been painted by his now missing adopted sister, Rogue. A bolt of pain snapped through his chest at the sight. Where his sister was now was anyone's guess. She had left after taking one final painful shot from that bayou thief, Remy. He had stolen her heart and broken it more times than anyone cared to count. Finally, she had simply disappeared into the wilds of Australia, taking with her nothing beyond the clothes on her back, something about a vision quest. A foolish notion he blamed Logan for. He couldn't understand why she would turn her back on her family in order to go seek something within herself. Not when things were going as they were, when they needed every able body in order to keep the fight going.

"Are you here for something important, _Master_ Wagner, or just a chance to view your sister's artwork," asked Mystique turning to face him. She wore the tiny skull near the center of her forehead; it appeared to wink at him

"Mother," he switched to his native German. "I need your help." Raven Darkholme answered in the same tongue.

"I am not going to get that woman and her husband. I have no interest in assisting them."

"I know that you have no interest in helping them, but you cannot deny that they have helped us all. No matter what crimes they are guilty of, they do not deserve to be abandoned in their hour of need."

"You sound like a true pupil of Xavier, Kurt. It is about time that they pay for the trouble that they have caused, both in the human and mutant communities. Or have you forgotten how many bodies are on the conscience of Master Essex?"

"I doubt that he has a conscience for them to rest upon, but still can you truly say you will ignore the good that they have done?"

"Whatever good they have done, they did for their own selfish reasons, I'm sure."

"The same could be said for you and Master Lensherr, Mother."

"That is indeed true, and were he and I in the same situation, I would not be surprised to find that we were left to rot in a prison just as they are going to be."

"Mother, should I remind you how much you owe her? You owe her the life of your grandchild. You owe her my life."

"No, Kurt. You owe her your life, and you owe her the life of your daughter. I wouldn't be surprised to find that she was the reason that everyone was sick in the first place. If you think that she deserves so much, you should go yourself to help her," Raven's voice escalated to a near scream, an out of character show of emotion bringing to Kurt's mind the memory of rumor of the history that Mrs. Essex and his mother shared. Neither woman would say anything about the rumor, both of them skillful at sidestepping questions about their previous lives and the activities that they engaged in. But the reaction of those who faced them in battle was enough to say that they were considered formidable and feared opponents. Kurt had seen an entire squad of men turn tail and run when she started toward them. He had heard the whispered tales of her touch melting flesh, though he had never seen her do it himself. Even if it was nothing more than a rumor, it was an effective tool to terrorize her opponents.

"I can see that there is no reason for us to continue this conversation, Mother."

"No, Kurt, there is no reason for this conversation to continue. I am not going to help Lenneth Essex, no matter what you offer me." Mystique then turned back to the landscape that her daughter had painted years ago. With one hand, she nearly brushed her fingers against the canvas, pulling back to keep from putting her fingerprints on it.

"I miss Rogue also, Mother, but Madame Essex is not to blame for her disappearance."

"I know that, Kurt," she snapped. "Rogue has nothing to do with my problems with Lenneth. Or perhaps I should call her Poisyn."

"Poisyn?"

"Look her up in the database, Kurt. It will tell you everything that you need to know and perhaps you'll understand then why I want nothing to do with helping her avoid the fate that she created for herself." Mystique moved to a chair and sat down, waving Kurt to let himself out without another word. The fuzzy elf left then, quietly closing the door behind him.

"Poisyn," he said to himself in the hallway as he walked toward the computer room where the database was housed. "A codename? Lenneth Ascher-Essex never needed a codename, did she?"

* * *

Time had ceased to mean anything to either of the Essexs. They slept when they choose, eat when there was food, hot or cold, and filled their time with what they could find to do.

Nathan lay on the cot, his chest exposed, looking up at the ceiling. He had become intimately acquainted with the ceiling, knowing the composition of the stones above him and the graduations in color much like the skin of his bride. The woman was sitting on the floor, eyes shut. He idly wondered what exactly she was thinking about.

"Nathan, I'm deathly bored, love," she said to him, opening her eyes and fixing them on him. He turned on his side and propped his head up on his hand.

"And what exactly do you intend to do about it, Lenneth?" He asked, curious and amused.

"I think I'll take over this base to ease my boredom. I think perhaps I should make this into my own little kingdom." She rose from her seated position with the swish of the silk kimono she was wearing. "After all, that should keep me occupied at least until the end of the day."

"The end of the day?"

"Of course, Nathan," she said her tone becoming somewhat snippy. "It isn't as if this is a large compound. There are only 300 people on this entire base, most of them with an I.Q. below 100. It won't take me that long to bend them to my will. Especially not if I start from the bottom and work my way up."

"Why from the bottom to the top?"

"Because that's where the real power is. If I own the guards, what are the higher ups going to do? They're out-numbered five to one, prisoners in their own base." She crossed the space between them. "Besides, once I own the lower level flunkies, you'll have many strong, stupid rats to play with."

"Humans are a waste of my time."

"Yes, but you have nothing other than time to waste here. And besides wouldn't you rather waste your time finding ways to make better soldiers out of these poor stupid animals than staring at the ceiling while you wait for _**them** to decide to allow **you**_ to have another book?" She put one hand on his chest and leaned in close to his face. "I would rather rule them than have them rule me, husband, or has your pride begun to slip in your years of captivity?" Then she looked away, hiding her eyes. "But if it is your wish that we remain living like animals while these inferior creatures rule over us, then I will abandon my mad and foolish plan."

The manipulation was obvious to them both, a game played for sheer familiarity's sake. He guided her face to his with his free hand.

"Far be it for me to deny **my** bride anything she wants. Feel free to take over this place for fun, **my** love."

She smiled at him, a slow predatory smile that showed just slivers of teeth.

"Splendid, you spoil me, love." She kissed him lightly on the cheek then before straightening up. She pulled her hair up into a pile on the top of her head, letting white wisps loose to give her a slightly disheveled look. Walking to the cell door she called loudly for the guard. Turning back, she said,

"I won't be long." With a wink she was gone.

* * *

Ororo 'Storm' Munroe looked up from the basinet where her son laid, his thumb firmly stuck between his two small lips. Taking the edge of his make-shift bib, she wiped away the drool dripping down his chin. He had his father's brown-red hair, though it was arranged in curls more like her own. Pulling loose her ponytail, she let her hair flow over her shoulders. Shaking it out, she tried to release the tension she felt. Word had come in days ago that a team was going to be assembled to attempt the rescue of Master and Madame Essex. She knew that he was going, there was no getting around the fact that he was going. He was the only person currently within the compound who had gone to human occupied areas and come back with his powers still intact. And of course, his infiltration skills were going to be necessary in order to get past the security systems. He was going to risk his life for Madame and Master Essex, two people who had made his life heaven and hell respectively. He had admitted to her early on that he had slept with Madame Essex on more than one occasion years ago, though he assured her that it was long over. Of course, the fact that he had helped Master Essex destroy the morlocks had only made that admission more disgusting.

A room away, a door opened and shut followed by the sound of several things being dropped on the floor.

"Shush," she hissed automatically. The footsteps immediately disappeared from sound, though a hand landed on her shoulder.

"Just got him to sleep, non?"

"Yes," she whispered, turning her head to receive his forehead kiss. "He's been crying all day. I think he knows you are leaving." The pair walked out of the nursery and stopped in what could be called their living room.

"Seems everyone knows that ol' Remy is leaving. Too many saying he ain't coming back though." He palmed his deck and started dealing himself a game of solitaire on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. "Don't like dat so much, chere."

"It's a suicide mission, and everyone knows it," Storm confirmed the general understanding of the others living in close proximity. "And there are those who think that it's stupid to try and save them. After all, if their powers have been taken, there isn't anything they can do to help us anymore."

"What dey can do for us ain't the reason we be sticking our neck out for dem. It's what dey already done."

"You mean murdering the morlocks and using humans as lab rats?"

"No, I mean leading us when we were disorganized and liable to end up dead and curing a plague that nearly claimed the lives of everyone here, including you and me."

"That doesn't erase the wrong that they've done."

"Non, it don't. But dat ain't our choice. As Kurt say, everybody face God someday. Until then, dey live wit dey choices. Ain't no reason for us to give up on dem. If doing bad tings were reason to give up on someone, den dis Cajun is at the top of the list for givin' up on."

"You've changed."

"So have dey. And dat's why I'm willing to go. To stick my neck out for dem. Sinister ain't my favorite person, to be sure. And 'is wife is as crazy as he, but dey've both done too many tings for others for us to just turn and walk away from dem."

Ororo looked at him with wide eyes; this was a new thing, Remy defending anyone with this kind of vehemence. Not since Rogue and her complete destruction of a facility with every member of its staff. The death of Xavier and several others that he considered friends, the disappearance of Rogue, and Essex's ascension to leadership had taken most of the fight out of him. She leaned across the counter and kissed him hurriedly.

"What dat for, chere?"

"Just wanted to steal a kiss is all," she replied turning around to get something out of the cupboard.

* * *

Nathaniel Essex had gone to sleep, woken up, eaten, translated the Times into Latin, and gone back to sleep before she returned. How many hours that had required, he didn't know, but he wasn't surprised to find that she didn't look the least bit tired when she returned.

Lenneth walked up to the cell door, flanked as usual by two guards, twirling the keys to the door. He sat up and looked at her, then to her followers, their blank stares told him everything that he needed to know. A smile crept onto his face, the points of his teeth appearing in the tiny gap between his lips.

"I see you have done as you said you would, Lenneth."

"You expected less, Nathan," she asked standing outside the door. With a pout, she showed the key ring to the guard on her left. "Which key opens this door?"

The man looked at the key ring and pointed to a key with a square top and two teeth.

"That one, Mistress Essex."

"Thank you, Edwards," she stuck the key in the lock and with a twist the door popped open. "Your accommodations have been changed, Master Essex. May I escort you to your new flat?"

He crossed the floor to her and placed her hand on his forearm.

"I would be more than happy to allow the lady to escort me to my room," was his arch reply.

"Of course," she said. "Edwards, Nicholson," she addressed her flunkies. "Get that cell cleaned up and make sure that you are very careful with our wardrobe, specifically Master Essex's. I will not be pleased if there are any creases where there should be none."

The pair swept away then, leaving the two guards to do her bidding. Wherever they passed anyone, the people bowed to them. Lowering their eyes in deference to the woman who had convinced them that she was their leader.

Finally, the two reached a wooden door, a lovely mahogany out of place in a compound made of metal.

"Beyond this door is your new flat, love. And there is a present awaiting you within."

"My, my, another present? Is there an anniversary I've forgotten?"

"Our anniversary, love? No. Not this month. Nor a birthday. Perhaps once you see your present, you'll understand."


	5. Once Upon A Time

**NOTE: THIS IS A MAJOR DEPARTURE FROM THE UNDERSTOOD INFORMATION REGARDING DR. ESSEX'S LIFE. NO FRUIT THROWING PLEASE.**

* * *

**Over a century earlier…**

"Doctor Essex, there is a woman here to see you," said the man who sometimes was nice enough to butler for the strange scientist that everyone had apparently shunned as uncultured. There were also rumors that he had been directly responsible for the death of his wife, but charges being unbrought, they were only unsubstantiated hall talk as some would say.

"Tell her to go away," was the reply he got from beyond the door. He never went into the Doctor's lab proper, only to the outside door. If he got an answer when he spoke, he knew the doctor was listening, if not, it certainly wasn't important enough to invade a man's privacy.

"Sir, she told me to tell you that she will not leave until you have seen her and it is rather urgent," he took the tone of one long suffering and the truth was he had been suffering with this particular situation for over an hour. She had come to the door and simply refused to be removed from the premise, despite his attempts at coaxing, cajoling, and finally threatening until she was seen by the Master of the house in all his rather dubious glory. Roderick had seen the man behind the name, and was hardly impressed.

The door opened with a quickness he wasn't expecting and the doctor himself issued forth, his waistcoat undone and the look on his face that of a thundercloud just looking for somewhere to unload.

The woman who was the subject of the conversation was standing the drawing room when he stormed in, hardly the picture of decorum. Apparently he had been dragged away from something he considered much more important than the whims of some unknown female of the species. She turned to fix her gaze upon him, her parasol still held primly between two black lace gloved hands. Her hair was pulled up into a bun and primarily covered with a funeral veil. His arrival didn't appear to cause her any untoward feeling at all.

"Doctor Essex," she said with a voice that managed to sound both sultry and shy. "How kind of you to grant me your attention for a few brief moments."

"Lady," he stopped a few feet from her, and as if suddenly remembering himself started to address the issues of his appearance. "You have drawn me away from a rather delicate experiment at an inopportune time." His speech was cordial, his tone anything but. "State your business and be gone."

She looked past him to his butler, for only a second, but long enough to make it understood that she wanted the older man gone before she would continue any further with what she had to say.

"I think, Dr. Essex, that once I have stated that which has brought me to your door that having me leave again will be the last thing you request."

"Lady," he waved the butler away. Roderick went to busy himself with anything out of sight of the house owner. "What exactly could you possibly have to say that I would find so fascinating?"

She seated herself without his permission, turning her face away so that her eyes were hidden from him.

"It has come to my attention through various channels, ask not how for I shall not answer, that you know many things about humanity that your peers will neither admit to nor discuss. I have not come to speak with you about the merits of your research. I am a scientist myself and understand that sometimes there are sacrifices that must be made in the name of knowledge. I have only come seeking your assistance in my own predicament."

Nathan buried his impatience under the interest that was beginning to stir. She knew of his reputation, both above and below, and yet she did not seem at all disgusted by his choices. Interesting considering the undue worth so many had placed upon human life.

"And what predicament do you find yourself in, Lady…"

"Ascher, Lenneth Ascher, Dr. Essex. And I find myself with a strange ability to affect things in odd ways."

"You will have to explain yourself further, Lady Ascher."

"I understand. Perhaps it would be better for you to simply watch. Would you be so kind as to give me a bit of brandy in that snifter glass?" She had raised her head enough to indicate a bottle of brandy and a pale blue snifter glass that Roderick had certainly left out for his own use. It was a large, heavy crystal affair with a bit of blue veining that seemed to change the hue of the entire glass. He brought her both the glass and the bottle and watched, brow furrowing with impatience, as she drank the brandy from the glass. Then, only seconds later, she spat back into the glass. When she was done, there was less liquid than had been there when the brandy was poured, but not by much.

"Here, smell." He looked at her with a surprise. "Please," she insisted.

Taking the glass, he held it up to his nose. It had the smell of a much purer alcohol, the kind one would use for wounds.

"How…"

"Apparently, I have the ability to chemically change things which I bring into my body. Now, if you would hand me back the glass." Stunned, he handed it back to her. She swallowed what was in the glass without a second thought. Then she simply held the glass between her palms. A thin veneer of what looked like a purple fluid exuded from her skin, greasing the glass. Then it shattered, eaten before his very eyes. The shards of glass left over from it hit the floor, and small holes began to appear in his carpet.

"My apologies, Doctor Essex, my abilities are far from strictly controlled." Lenneth Ascher was looking down at the small burn marks appearing his floor.

"Something I will be more than happy to help you with." For the first time since this woman had thrust herself into his life, Nathaniel Essex smiled.

* * *

It would become clear after a few years in her company that Lenneth truly wanted something beyond simply the role of pupil to his master, or subject to his experimenter. It was then that she pressed for a deepening of their bond, and a trip to the local minister. The possibility of her leaving and taking with her the abilities that were vindication of every theory he had formulated was the only reason he had decided to do as she asked. At least, at first. When the one who would be called Apocalypse appeared, he had to admit to himself that he was perhaps more deeply invested in her than he had originally admitted or anticipated. The argument between them had been epic for the quiet pair.

"You cannot be serious. Serve him and he will give you eternity? Since when have you been so willing to allow another to dictate your course?"

"Lenneth, I have decided. I will hear no more about this from you."

"If you think I will be silent, Nathan, you are wrong. I will not watch you debase yourself before another, not even one such as he who claims so much power. Have you forgotten your pride?"

"I have forgotten nothing, Lady Essex," he snapped coldly. "And I have spoken my last on this. Be silent or take yourself to your room and sulk that I may eat in peace."

The way she tossed her dark hair and squared her shoulders said that this fight was far from over, but they were interrupted by the arrival of the guest about which they had been quarrelling. The man was unremarkable, the kind one passed a hundred times a day on a London street and didn't pay one moment's notice to. But the way he brushed in and seated himself between the two of them had all the markings of a snake charmer who knows he's got his mark.

"My offer, you have considered it?"

"It is a rather considerable offer," returned Nathan. "But my wife does not agree."

"She does not," the stranger turned to look at her, measuring her with his eyes. "And she objects why?"

"I object, sir," she spoke over Nathan. "Because I doubt your claims and do not think so kindly of the idea of my husband being taken in by a charlatan."

The stranger laughed, a sound that made the marrow of bones quiver in suppressed terror, though it was supposed to be a jovial sound.

"A charlatan, Lady," said the stranger finally. A moment later, he was standing beside her, his fingers into the light curls of her dark hair. "Perhaps I should show you my power, with your husband's permission." The final part was simply an add-on; Nathan would not have disagreed if the stranger had been asking him to give him half his weight in flesh. The proverbial carrot was simply too tempting to pass up.

Lenneth's breath slowed as she willed the feelings of fear to subside. His breath was he breathing? was coursing across the skin of her throat; his fingers had closed around her hair. Every nerve screamed to pull away, but to where and for what?

"Shall I show her what I have offered you, Essex? Place her fears of fakery to rest."

"Whatever you see fit." That smile was back, only this time is it was tinged with the same cruelty that she had become all too accustom to.

* * *

Nathaniel spent the night in his laboratory, pouring over the finely written notes his wife had been keeping of his experiments. She had always been a much neater hand than his, more careful about her numbers, allowing no mistakes to make it into the final set of papers that she would hand him at the end of the experiment. His mind kept telling him that Lenneth needed this lesson; she needed to understand that he was making a decision that could be more momentous than anything he had discovered so far. And who better than the one who was going to make it possible for him to truly see his dreams through to fruition? He would find a way out of the deal later, but until then, he would make sure to put to use this great gift he was being given. And if she wanted to remain by his side, she would accept that.

The next morning, Lenneth came down to the lab, her materials in hand as always to take measurements and notes on the various patients under his 'care'. There were shadows behind her eyes whenever their eyes met, but she said nothing, nor did she say anything more about his decision to indebt himself to the stranger. That night, he could hear her crying quietly in her dressing room, but still there were no words.

After he had taken on his mantle of immortality, he had returned home to find her eating quietly by herself, the candles of the dining room unlit save for the candelabra closest to her plate.

"Lenneth," he called to her across the darkened room. She looked up quickly and finding his form in the dark, said,

"Nathan… is something the matter?"

"No, Lenneth, not at all." She picked up the candles and started toward him.

"Leave them and come to me." Without protest, she set the candles back down on the table and stepped up to face him.

"Nathan, what's going on?"

"Hush, my wife, hush. It will all be much better now." He drew her to him, bringing her lips to his. It was a kiss much more than polite, but perhaps less than one would expect from ardent lovers.

"Of course, my husband, as you say," she replied.

* * *

**BACK TO THE PRESENT**

"My, my, another present? Is there an anniversary I've forgotten?"

"Our anniversary, love? No. Not this month. Nor a birthday. Perhaps once you see your present, you'll understand."

The door before them opened easily under her pushing hand. Nathan followed her in. Before them in the living room were several pieces of well appointed furniture, fronted by a coffee table upon which sat a covered dish.

"A meal," he guessed, knowing that to be far too obvious for his darling. She only sighed and sat down in an over-stuffed chair to the right of the table. "Of course not. Something so simple would hardly be considered a present by you."

"Why on earth would I consider a meal a present? Food is something we can get easily enough. No. It is something you'll like far better."

Nathaniel approached the table and placed his hand on top of the dish, meeting Lenneth's eyes over the top of it. Then he uncovered it with a waiter's flourish.

Seated in the center of a polished silver platter was the head of Ambassador Bryant, obviously recently severed from the congealing blood beneath his abruptly ended neck. On top of his open and staring eyes were two rings, each of gold. Picking them up, he looked to his wife curiously, his amusement evident in the curling of the edges of his lips.

"For me," he asked archly.

"I've never seen the need to kill for anyone else, love." She held her hand out to him. "I know they aren't our wedding rings, but yours is somewhere in London and mine is in the sea off the Australian coast, but I thought they would be wonderful stand-ins."

"Is this to say that you have finally returned to me fully?" He started to put the ring on her finger.

"Better to say that I never truly left." Once she had her ring on, she placed his on his hand. "A perfect fit. There are some things that I shall never forget."

"Then never forget again, my wife, that you are mine. You will keep your vows this time."

"Of course, my husband, as you say."


	6. Pick your Poisyn

**Oscampa, New Mexico**

Many years earlier…

A tall woman stretched to put a box on top of a free-standing closet. The room around her is still in disarray, the usual disarray of being newly moved in. An older man knocks on the door behind her, causing her to turn. He has a hat clutched tight between his two wrinkled hands. His hair is dark black but already starting to thin from too much time in the sun. There is a much younger woman standing next to him, she curtseys nicely when the lady notices her.

"Ma'am," the young lady begins. "My Poppa is wondering when you will be open for business."

"Tomorrow, I might be ready by tonight, but certainly by tomorrow."

"Oh," the girl stopped to translate the message to her Father. The man spoke to her slowly, his worry apparent in his voice. "He really needs to see someone about his hands, so we can call on you tomorrow?"

"I can see him today, if you'd like. It won't take long and he can have some relief. He makes his living with his hands, doesn't he?"

"Yes," the girl answered hesitantly. This gringo woman knew a great deal for someone who had just appeared. "They are getting awfully stiff. It's hard for him to weed."

"I see. Well then, if you don't mind the mess, I'll take a look at him and perhaps get him what he needs so he can get back to work." There was something a little off-putting about the smile this new lady doctor exhibited, but at least there was a doctor now. Now they would have medicine and maybe she could stop the minion of death who stalked their homes.

**Oscampa, New Mexico Body Count: 3,500. Known Survivors: 15. **

Kurt couldn't stop looking at that figure. 3,500 people died according to the report. They were all dead because of her. The file made no attempt to discuss the motivations of the woman who came to be known as Poisyn for her proclivity toward using obscure substances to kill her victims, though she wasn't above simply shooting someone if the situation called for it. All totaled, Kurt counted more than 10,000 people whose deaths could be attributed to Lenneth "Poisyn" Ascher-Essex. And these were only the bodies that were known to be in her closet and under her floors, there were surely many more who had died as a result of some side-effect or unaccounted for exposure to her compounds.

Mystique was sitting in her kitchen, drinking a glass of extremely poor quality wine when her son entered without knocking. The scowl on his face told her everything that she wanted to know.

"Do you still think she's worth saving," asked the woman over her glass.

"Are you, mother," returned Kurt.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were well aware of who and what you were asking others to risk their lives for. She might have turned over a new leaf to some people, but to me, she'll always be Poisyn."

"She named a daughter after you. Why?"

"She owed me her life. A debt she paid when she saved yours. Saving the rest of the compound was simply a bonus. But I wouldn't be surprised if that little mess wasn't hers to begin with. It has all the marks of her experiments, all the usual disregard for who will be affected." Mystique finished her glass and set it down on the countertop. "So do you still want to send a mission after her?"

"Yes, I still believe that even she is worth saving. Just like you."

"I've done everything I can to convince you otherwise, so since you want this done properly, I'll go. But let me tell you one thing."

"What?"

"If things start to go south, I reserve the right to get rid of her and her husband as necessary."

"I will leave that up to your discretion," said Kurt turning around to leave. Despite the tight lid he was keeping on his emotions, the back and forth lashing of his tail was more than giving away his emotional state. Luckily, his mother didn't comment and his daughter didn't seem to care.

* * *

Lenneth swirled a beaker full of dark yellow liquid and then held it up to the Bunsen burner. It immediately started to bubble, just as she had anticipated, changing to a color closer to pink.

"Almost ready," she murmured to herself, taking notes with her free hand. It didn't have to be perfect, but as a matter of course, Lenneth preferred for the things she did to be as close to perfect as she was capable of making them. A stray scream filtered into the small side lab she was using from the surgical theatre down the hallway where her husband was currently occupied. Apparently, cutting someone into little pieces was soothing to him without his powers or the necessary equipment to do any real research. Lenneth suspected it was just the sensation of having blood on his hands that produced the calming effect. Anyone else might have spared a thought for the amount of pain the person receiving her husband's ministrations was in, but having been under her husband's knife on more than one occasion, Lenneth could safely say that he was being rather mild and that person should count themselves lucky that he was in a fairly good mood.

Hanging the beaker, she allowed the liquid to cool while she began calculations on the amount necessary to produce the desired effect in her present lab subject. Given that he came out to approximately 113 kilos, 200cc of her mixture was certain to produce the desired effect without being in any danger of killing him. Unless he happened to be in that .01 of the population that had allergic reactions to the compound itself, then no matter what dosage she gave him, it was going to kill him. Pity she didn't have anything that would allow her to genetically screen her subjects. This way she simply had to work with the assumption that they weren't going to be damaged by her new toy. Such a shoddy way to work, especially when one had a limited number of subjects to work on, a pool that was getting steadily smaller as her husband worked out his frustrations.

"Busy, love," reached her ears just as a hand pressed down on the back of her neck, and slide around to her throat.

"Yes, I am rather in the middle of something," she said quietly, ignoring the pressure he was placing on her throat. Lenneth picked up the syringe she was going to use and carefully measured out what she would need. "Finished already?"

"There was actually very little that needed to be done. What are you doing?"

"New type of addictive drug compound, something I can use to keep our subjects loyal. If it works as planned, you should like its effects. Now if you will excuse me, I have a subject to work on. I'll return shortly." She slipped out of his grip and blew him a kiss as she stepped out of the room. Walking down the hallway, she could hear her husband's subject still whimpering. She strode past without a second thought; she had a subject of her own to work on, what did it matter what happened to his?


	7. A Life Well Lived

Mystique tapped one foot impatiently, the sound of the well-worn sole nearly muffled against the rock of the hanger. The blackbird sat behind her, hatch opened, a reminder of the days long past. The days when at least certain members of the mutant population had the funds necessary to fight for their dreams, rather than simply waiting for extermination. Despite the fact that Mystique had disagreed with his views, Charles Xavier had been a man that she respected for his tenacity and conviction. The very same conviction that had gotten him killed, but in Mystique's mind that made him no less worthy of her respect.

Katherine Pryde had joined her nearly a half-hour earlier, choosing to sit on a crate of outdated supplies and wait for the third member of the rescue mission. Her brown hair was painfully short, too short to even curl as it once had. She had taken the fall of Excalibur, and the death of several of her teammates hard. Hard enough to spend every day afterward working on how she could possibly make her powers work better, how she could use them to save those closest to her in the future as she had been unable to in the past. Black shirt, black pants, black shoes were the attire of the day, fitting the concept of uniform without any logo or code of arms linking them together.

The linkage between them was something they carried in their minds, not on their bodies. Everyone knew the drill, despite the fact that a rescue mission had not been attempted in several years. Get in, get out. If you get left behind, there was no guarantee that anyone would ever be coming back, so be prepared to survive on your own. The objective is everything and failure is not only an option, but a major possibility.

The final member of the team strode in, and almost elicited a clap from Mystique. Gambit had forgone his trench coat, as she had requested in favor of a black muscle shirt and a nearly equally tight pair of pants.

"Dis a long way from mi style, non," commented the Cajun.

"Don't care. Let's go," was Mystique's brusque reply. Katherine said nothing, falling into step behind Gambit as the three climbed into the blackbird.

So off they went with the stated intentions of rescuing two of their leaders from execution for making the tough decisions that go other people killed.

* * *

A plate struck the floor and shattered. It was the third one that he had picked up in the last few minutes. But unlike the others, this one drew attention because Lenneth was back in the apartment with him and came to investigate the noise. What she found was Nathan leaning against the counter in the kitchen, steadying himself with one hand against his forehead.

Stopping close enough to press against him, she asked,

"Are you alright?"

"Fine," he snapped, half turning away from her. That was when she truly looked at his hand. Grabbing him by the wrist, she pulled him back toward her.

"Nathan, what is going on?" The back of his hand was spotted, liver spotted, a condition he had never had before. But he had been a young man when he was offered an eternity to study the human animal. As she held his hand, she could feel it trembling, shaking. "How long has this been going on?"

"There is nothing wrong. I've simply overextended myself," the sound of his voice said he wanted to believe his explanation, yet there was a tinge, an undertone, of fear.

Lenneth put one arm around his neck, resting her head against his chest, refusing to ask anymore questions and make him lie further. Pulling away, she picked up a plate off the counter and took it to the table. Then she continued onward and out of the room, leaving him to his own devices. By the time she reached their bed and sat down on the end of it, her mind was racing with the possibilities.

Nathan had been without his abilities for over five years. In that time, it appeared that he had been aging at the same rate as any normal person. A day was a day, a year a year. But now it was evident that he was aging faster than either he had anticipated or she had expected. Weary, she hung her head. The idea of it was staggering. Without his powers, he would age and die much sooner than if he had lived his normal life. A muffled cough came to her ear, bringing her head up with the first feelings of true fear. If she did not do something and quickly, the man she loved and to whom she had devoted her entire life would be gone. And this time, she would have to watch him die.

Years ago, he had simply not returned, marked as missing, but presumed dead. So she had lived her life according to that presumption, that he was indeed dead. Lady Essex had become a widow. Stretching backward, Lenneth ran her hand over the sheets near where he slept beside her. With the presumption of his death, she had allowed her bed to remain empty and cold, fitting punishment for the years of infidelity that she had heaped upon her husband's shoulders. Lying back, she turned on her side, looking toward his half of their rumpled bed. She hadn't made the bed that morning, perhaps out of sheer disinterest, but now the look of it, with its forgotten blanket and crumpled sheets, was a reminder of the life that she might once again be losing.

Another muffled cough came from the next room and she tried not to think about the number of things that it could be the herald of. Pneumonia or something worse. Perhaps a genetic defect that his abilities had saved him from all those years ago. Maybe he would have died early if she had managed to persuade him not to take Apocalypse's golden apple.

A species of madness crept over her at the thought of the much more powerful mutant who had granted her husband his powers. Fingers twined in long locks, dragging them out to the ends of their lengths only to rush back to dig into her scalp. Yet even as she pushed the thought of him away, a single tiny voice said,

"What he grants once, he can grant again. For a price."

And what price would a desperate woman be willing to pay?

* * *

Rogue sat on the edge of a rock outcropping overlooking a sea of sand. Off in the distance what looked like a bird flew away to parts unknown.

"Soon," said someone behind her in a low, ominous voice. "Soon the time will come to begin."

The Southern femme fatale raised on hand to brush a stray strand of white hair from her face, a face that looked as though someone had painted a butterfly wing over one eye in blue, red, and black.

"Ah'm ready."

"Good. The resurrection is at hand."


	8. An Offer Refused

The woman once known as Rogue considered the adopted daughter of the woman called Mystique, once the lover of a man called Gambit stalked back and forth before the unoccupied throne. The room she paced was the length of two football fields, one end marked by a pair of huge doors. The other end was dominated by the enormous throne that Rogue stopped to look at every few minutes.

"Be still, War," said the Chancellor sitting at the foot of the throne, his face a picture of composition. "He will return when he has his objective."

"I don't see why I couldn't have just gone and collected her myself."

"Hush," hissed the Chancellor opening his eyes for the first time in hours to look at her through purple eyes with slit pupils. "The Master is infallible and if he did not deem you capable, who are you to question?"

Chastised, the Rogue stopped her pacing, looking at the far away doors as they were pushed open. Her skirt swirled at her ankles as she came to an abrupt stop. Instead of the Master Apocalypse, a servant entered the hall and scurried through the intervening space toward the two.

"Chancellor, the followers grow restless. They want to know why the Master has not come before them. They appear afraid."

"I will come to them then. I would not wish for them to displease him with their fears. He will see them all destroyed if they cannot believe in his absence." The Chancellor did not walk across the room following the servant, but rather floated, his toes inches from the floor.

The doors shut with a sound that vibrated down the room toward the woman now called War.

Lenneth laid her hand on Nathan's forehead, feeling without pressing the fever coursing through his body. He had not awakened that morning when she did, instead languishing abed, unconscious as she tended to him. Her lips pursed involuntarily with worry. Already his hair had lost its darkness, its luster, turning a matte white. His cheeks had sunken in during the night. No matter how she looked at him, she could hardly see the vibrant, if sadistic, man who had been her companion just days earlier.

"Oh, Nathan," she murmured to he empty room. "What am I going to do?" She left Nathan in their bed heading downstairs to her laboratory. As she passed a couple of her servants in the hallway, she told them to make him as comfortable as they could and that she was absolutely not to be disturbed.

The lab was quiet save for the hum of the air conditioning system; so quiet she could hear her heart beating far too fast. There were tears in her eyes, tears she didn't want to shed, not all over the spotless floor of her workspace. Besides, she simply didn't have the time necessary to waste on such sentimental foolishness. If she was going to save him, she was going to have to work far more quickly.

"What is this I hear," thundered the Chancellor from his perch high above the assembled in the much smaller space of the assembly hall. "I hear dissension among the believers, dissension against the Master?"

There was a slight murmur of dissent, but it certainly didn't have the strength that it should have had if such dissension was not present.

"Know you not what his rage can do to those who stand against him? You are his believers, his chosen, yet I feel fear in you." The empathic abilities of the Chancellor were well known; it was one of the things that made him useful to Apocalypse, his ability to feel even the slightest touch of disagreement, dissension, or distrust from anyone he could see. "Fear cannot exist among his chosen. Only strength. If you wish to stand against him, you will be among those who are buried as all of the Master's enemies are buried." His thunderous voice carried and echoed back from the high walls. "Do you wish to be buried by the human scum or their barely adequate enemies who call themselves the Mutant Nation? You know that the Master will bury them both, make them little more than forgotten monuments standing in the sands. Tell me, do you wish to be buried?"

Several strong voices said, "No," but it was hardly the strong no that he should have heard from those who had given themselves to the cause of his Master.

"I ask you again: DO YOU WISH TO BE BURIED," screamed the Chancellor, purple veins appearing around his eyes, the mark of the Apocalypse upon him.

"NO," screamed back the assembled. Then the chant went up,

"Hail Lord Apocalypse!" The words bounced back and forth through the assembly hall. The words feed the frenzy among the Master's followers, just as it should have in the Chancellor's estimation. One thing that no one knew was how those frenzied meetings were created by the Chancellor's own internal frenzy feed by his need to please his Master.

War looked at the doors once again, listening absently to the sound of those who had dedicated their lives to the creature she now called Master. A smile flitted across her face as she swept her hair off her shoulder with one hand, accenting her soft jaw and cheek. Things would begin soon enough, but she couldn't help feeling just a touch of anticipation.

"You will not be able to save him without my help."

Lenneth went bolt straight at the sound of that voice speaking in her ear. She could feel him leaning over her shoulder, his breath on the side of her face. Turning away, she leapt out of her chair, nearly overturning the beakers she had been working with.

Apocalypse had chosen a familiar form for his visit, the form he had taken on their first meeting at Nathan's home in London all those years earlier. He was even wearing the style of that time, his suit properly pressed, shoes shined, and a walking cane in his hands. He pointed the stick at her, his smile all mockery.

"You know that I'm right."

"Nathan will be fine. I will take care of him. I always have."

"Yes, you've always been there for him," said Apocalypse quietly, seating himself in her vacated chair. "You have always stood by, waiting for him to feel devotion for you as you feel toward him. You've even made something a whore of yourself trying to get his attention."

Lenneth simply lifted her chin, though the barb had found its mark. Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she slowly licked her lips, giving herself a moment to think.

"Why are you here, Nur? Nathan betrayed you. What does it matter to you if he survives?"

"His survival is not my objective. Yours, however, is." Lenneth turned toward him so quickly that it took her hair a moment to settle on her shoulder.

"What?"

"I have no further interest in Nathaniel Essex, he has proven himself to be an unworthy creature. No longer worth my notice. His first loyalty is to himself and his fool's quest for knowledge that he can never truly obtain. You, however, have shown yourself both loyal and pragmatic. Making deals where they are necessary but never forgetting where your true allegiance lies. So I have come to offer you again, what I offered you once before."

"I can't!" she cut him.

"You can, but you won't," he corrected. "Because of him. He who left you to face the wrath of the world alone, let you rot in prison, despite the fact that he knew where you were." Apocalypse tapped the cane against the floor causing an unpleasant pinging sound against the metal.

"You asked me if I would leave him," she snapped in return. "I told you then what I am telling you now, I love Nathaniel Essex. I will never leave him, least of all for the likes of you, no matter what it is you think you offer me."

"I offer you his life." His words brought a cold end to her heated tirade. She stared at him with wide eyes. "He will die without my help. I will restore him to himself, return the powers the humans stole, but only if you honor me as your Master."


	9. Til Death Do Us Part

Lenneth Essex sat, hunched over, in a chair next to her husband's bed, his hand gripped tightly between her own. She could feel the slow rhythm of his heartbeat, which was getting slower as the hours passed by. She couldn't bring herself to look across the room at the clock, an old wood and metal thing, that ticked away the seconds her beloved had left to live.

She had tried everything.

Nothing worked.

Bringing his pale and feverish hand to her lips, she kissed it lightly, pushing more drugs into his system to fight the pain. The truth was staring her in the face. Nur had been right. Nathaniel was going to die without his help. He had no powers left to sustain him and his incorruptible flesh was dying so quickly that even she couldn't stop it. That left her with the obvious answer to her question, but why was she not willing to take that step? Turning her left hand slightly, she watched the wink of her borrowed ring and looked at its companion on the hand of her husband. She had taken a vow, but she had broken it before. She had broken it for more frivolous things than this, far more frivolous things than saving his life.

Yet as she watched the ring she realized what was holding her back were not the vows, they hadn't meant anything to her in years. It was the principle of it. She had given Nathan her heart and her life, and those things had never been in jeopardy. She had never loved another as she loved him; she had never given her devotion to another as she was devoted to him. What Apocalypse was asking for was her complete and utter devotion, for her to look upon him as she looked upon Nathan, to be willing to live or die at his whim.

Lenneth pressed Nathan's hand to her forehead. The question was no longer simple. Was she truly willing to betray Nathan to see him live? Or would she stand by him only to see him die? Could she turn her back on him just to give him a few more years, perhaps a decade or two to continue his work? Did she love him enough to walk away?

Those thoughts continued to weigh heavily on her mind as the expected knock at the door came. The door was only opened a crack for someone to say,

"Your guests have arrived, Madame Essex."

"Wonderful. I will meet them downstairs, Charlotte," her voice was tired and slow, though the word 'wonderful' did still carry a bit of mirth with it. They had made it, perhaps everything would be all right.

* * *

Gambit, Shadowcat, and Mystique sat in comfortable chairs, each uncomfortably watching the humans wandering about around them that didn't even seem to mark their presence. An odd thing indeed given the blue woman sitting amongst them would have normally been cause for alarm and the handing out of weapons. They were still in this state of dis-ease when Lenneth came down the stairs and into the waiting room.

The first thing anyone noticed was that she was hardly as well put together as usual, her clothes being rumpled and slept in, her hair was matted on one side and flying on the other, and for the first time since they had known her, she had dark circles around her eyes. Yet, there she was with her characteristic knowing half-smile apparently completely at peace with the world.

"Welcome all," she greeted them. "I apologize for the wait, things are not going well."

"What do you mean and what did you do to these people," asked Mystique rising from her seat to confront her former friend.

"My husband is dying and as for what I did to these people, I made them docile and obedient. That's all." Perhaps it was the off-hand manner, but the declaration of Nathaniel Essex being near death stopped all three in their collective tracks.

"'ou serious?" The Cajun was the first to speak. "Sinister's dyin'?"

"Not, Sinister, Remy darling. Nathaniel Essex, Mr. Sinister is already quite dead. Nathan has had no powers for years and that's what's killing him now. His powers are gone, he cannot heal, and something that even I can't stop is ravaging his body." Lenneth slumped down in a chair, letting her head hang and her shoulders droop. "I've tried everything," she was quiet, then with a roar she continued,

"Absolutely everything!"

Several of the humans stopped to look at her for a moment. She waved them off and they continued about their tasks as if nothing at all had just occurred.

"I lost him once, and now I'm going to lose him again." Every beat of her heart reiterated that simple truth. Nathaniel Essex was going to die, if she didn't do the one thing she had kept from doing for over a hundred years. It was her choice, she could put him back on his feet or she could put him in his grave. It all came down to her final decision.

"So are you prepared to leave," asked Mystique folding her arms across her chest. The loss of Magneto had been devastating for her, Lenneth had stood by her, helped her let him go. That was before they had split over her return to the husband who was now dying but had done nothing but left Lenneth holding the bag over and over again.

"I'm not leaving him, Raven. It will take me an hour to get him ready."

"Len, it's better if you just leave him. If he's going to die, let him do so in comfort."

"Raven, I. AM. NOT. LEAVING. HIM." For a split second, Lenneth's eyes went from placid brown to deep scarlet as her anger/frustration/sadness emerged. "After all of this, I am going to finish things as they should be finished. I will stay beside him, watch over his final moments, as a wife should."

"Perhaps we should stay then, wait 'til he's dead," offered Kitty. "We don't want to try and haul him back only to have him die there."

Raven looked back at Lenneth, waiting for her response.

"He won't make it through the night. We can leave in the morning, I suppose," the soon to be grieving widow agreed. "Charlotte," called Lenneth.

The young woman in question appeared again, her lab coat smeared with a stain of purple powder.

"Madame Essex?"

"See my guests to their quarters and then start protocol 22 for me, won't you?"

"You will be leaving us?"

"Yes, Charlotte, in the morning. I want everyone to have their protocol before they go to bed, alright?"

"Yes, Madame, I'll see to it myself."

"Protocol 22," asked Mystique as Charlotte started to lead the three away.

"You'll see in the morning, Raven, I don't want to talk about it tonight." Charlotte led them away, leaving Lenneth alone in the waiting room looking at the silent gray walls. Getting up, she turned toward the stairs once again.

"If you must go down into death, my love, I shall not send you alone," murmured Lenneth to herself as she walked back up the stairs to her husband's bedroom.

* * *

Nathan's breath was become ever more shallow as Lenneth sat vigil at his bedside. At dawn, she could count almost a minute between them. During the night, she had drawn a small vial of her own blood, stopping it up with a mixture of sand and wax. The plug could easily be pulled if someone saw the need. She placed that small vial between his hands as she folded them over his chest.

"I will never truly leave you, my love. And I hope, one day, you will forgive me."

* * *

Kitty was the first to wake as a man stumbled into the room where she was staying, obviously having trouble breathing. Bolting out of bed, she sprinted past him only to nearly run into another person staggering down in the hallway. She phased through the older man and then turned to look back. Both men were dying. Kitty was joined seconds later by Mystique and Gambit; together they started for the stairs to Lenneth's room.

They found two bodies lying there together; both of them looking far older than any of them remembered ever seeing either of the Essexs being. The male had his hand clasped over his chest in a posture of repose. The female lay curled up beside him, one hand lying on his chest just above his hands.

"Mon dieu, she wa' serious."

"Yeah, I guess she was," agreed Kitty. Mystique looked at the corpses and shook her head with no words.

"All right, pack them up. I'm not leaving them here and no doubt the real military is going to be here as soon as they stop getting their ongoing status reports," were Mystique's brisk orders.

The three of them had been sent on a rescue mission, but how successful was it when one only liberated bodies?

* * *

The funeral held for Master and Madame Essex was quiet, well attended, but quiet. No one seemed willing to break the silence until it came time for someone to say a few words. There had been some debate on who should do the speaking. After all, the two of them had touched so many during both the good and evil days of their long lives. Finally, it was decided that Kurt, as the acting leader of the Mutant Nation, should say the formal good-bye to two people who had done so much to further the mutant cause.

"We gather here, on this day," began Kurt. "To bid farewell to Master and Madame Essex, two great leaders who have, during the dark times of our struggle, stood as beacons of light offering a path to those of us who faltered."

It was questionable if anyone shed genuine tears for Master Essex at the funeral, but there were several who shed true tears for the Madame. Raven Darkholme shed a tear or two as she held her granddaughter during the eulogy. Madame Summers shed tears as well, her two young sons sitting at her side.

"There are those of us who owe our lives to their science, and our freedom to their leadership. They will be sorely missed."

* * *

War paced back and forth outside the door of the Master's room, waiting impatiently for him to emerge. He had returned and simply swept into his rooms without speaking to her or the Chancellor, something that had never before happened. The Chancellor, of course, sat a few feet away, his feathers unruffled as usual by the strangeness of this occurrence.

"What's taken so long," demanded War, stopping to stare at the doors contemptuously.

"He will be out in his own time," replied Chancellor, folding his hands neatly in front of him. "You will simply have to be patient."

"Ah wanna know if he's brought her back or not."

"And he will tell us if he has achieved his ends when he is ready, no sooner. So be patient. Or go find someone to terrorize so all that nervous energy you have will go away. You're starting to give me a headache."

"Ah can make that go away anytime ya want," War's eyes betrayed the slight malevolence in her statement that was only tempered by the pout of her lips.

"I prefer meditation over your caresses right now, my darling, but perhaps later." The Chancellor looked at the doors himself, as if willing them to open and issue forth their wandering lord, but nothing happened. Then with a sigh, he settled back into the lotus position and closed his eyes. He was certainly one capable of waiting without wishing for something to break.


	10. Resurrection

"Why should we be willing to help you," Kurt sat, or rather perched, in the chair at the end of the conference table looking at the human ambassador who had just chosen to address him, or rather had addressed Jean, with a missive for assistance from some of the greater minds available to the Mutant Nation.

"You can't say that you're willing to simply stand by and let this plague that one of yours brought down on us go uncontested," the 'ambassador' was a much younger man by the name of Anderson, Ambassador Bryant having been found quite dead amongst the victims of the Grand Side Air Force Base where the Essexes had been kept.

"Why not," said Kurt pretending to be more interested in his tail than the words of his opponent. "After all, was this not exactly what the humans did after they sent their poison to us?"

"I thought you were Christian!"

"I was until they started teaching that I was a true son of the Devil and my mother was his whore. God will forgive me for choosing not to follow any longer a religion that would teach my own daughter to hate the very skin that Gott above gave her!" Kurt slipped back into his native tongue as his ire rose. First they had come while Lenneth lived to demand her life, now they demanded to be saved from her wrath after they took hers.

The Ambassador sat back; apparently stunned by this outburst from a man whom he had always been told was levelheaded, forgiving, and quiet.

Jean reached out and quietly put her hand on Kurt's arm, sending him a soothing thought as his muscles, well-trained and strong, tensed with the urge to leap forward and do some form of serious harm to the human who dared to come into their sanctuary and demand anything of them.

"So you won't help us?"

"We'll help you, but we will set our terms. Give us a few days to consider what we want," Jean spoke up for the first time. She knew that Kurt would agree with her, but was bristling under the audacity of this man's demands. Then she got up, turning away from Anderson and leading Kurt out of the room.

* * *

Anderson brushed on hand through his rather unkempt black hair. He had been among the Mutant Nation for a week; that was the first time Jean Grey had spoken during the negotiations. Usually she just sat and said nothing, no doubt, probing the minds of those who sat in looking for some kind of top-secret information. But what was she going to learn, Anderson thought that the Human world was in trouble? That was obvious enough; it wasn't as if the Mutant Nation didn't get the news, just not always in a timely manner. They surely knew about the thousands dead and hundreds infected with the plague called Protocol 22 that was ordered unleashed by Lenneth Essex just hours before her supposed death. They had to know, how could they, they who called themselves friends of the human world stand by and not assist?

* * *

Jean walked away from Kurt nearly immediately after they exited the conference room. Kurt stopped, watching for a moment as she walked away before saying across the intervening space.

"You are going to ask him what he wants to do."

"Yes. He knew her better than anyone. Thus he would know better than anyone what kind of weaknesses this thing has. With his help, we find a cure sooner and perhaps bring an end to this war all the sooner."

"What makes you think he will want to help save the humans who took her away from him?"

"Lenneth did this to give us a bargaining chip, that had to be her reasoning. With this in our corner, they can't deny us the right to ask for anything we want. But in order to make it stick, we have to be the ones who come up with the cure." Jean had stopped, her back still to Kurt, afraid to turn around because she knew the lie would be evident in her face. "We have to be the ones to find it first and he's our best way to do it."

"If you think so," agreed Kurt though his doubts were obvious in his voice. He hadn't been out of that room in the months since his return. What truly made Jean think that a bunch of dying homo sapiens was going to move him from his morose state?

"I do. Go play with your little girl, Kurt," she managed to put a smile in her voice. "You know how she hates to be kept waiting." Jean walked away then, her head held artificially high and her back arrow straight.

An entire hall had been devoted to him. And no one entered without his awareness or consent. So it was a good sign that Jean made it past the farthest door.

"Essex," she called to him as she stepped lightly down the hallway. "Where are you?"

"Here," the voice, a low baritone laced with weariness, came from a side door a few feet away. The lights were out, but the light from the hallway made it possible for Jean to make out his legs as he sat in a low chair. "Yes, Mrs. Summers?" He wasn't asking what she wanted, he knew that already. Jean hadn't been making any point of shielding.

"Will you help?"

"My wife created a plague," he said it in a quiet, matter-of-fact, way. "I'm sure wherever she is, she would rather see it rage on until there is nothing left to stand in its way. She'd consider that justice."

"And if bringing it to an end can bring an end to this war, wouldn't she want that as well?"

"Perhaps," he acquiesced. "Tell the Ambassador that I have put one condition on my assistance."

"And what condition is that?"

"I want my property in London returned to me. I don't care whom he has to kill to make it so, but if he wishes for my help, he will do it. Otherwise, I will keep what I know to myself and let what's left of the human race be damned."

"I suppose that isn't much," Jean couldn't help remembering what exactly it was that Essex had done in his London laboratory, or the various other places where he had chosen to set up shop in his history of over a hundred years. The thought brought a shudder to her body. She was the go-between in a bargain between a mad man and a fanatic; there was a comfortable place to be.

"It's nothing compared to what I could ask for." Then he fell silent and it was easily discerned that the conversation was over.

Jean, taking the non-verbal hint, left what had become informally known as the Quiet Man's hall and the quiet man who chose to live there. The same quiet man who took a small vial from his jacket pocket and held it up to the dark room as if studying it.

"I cannot decide, **my** love, should I make the deviltry you have created worse, or should I truly become the savior of the paltry creatures that make up the human race?" A low chuckle stumbled out from his black lips and his red eyes glowed in the darkness. "Or perhaps I shall be their savior only to gain what I need to continue what I wish. And return you to your rightful place."

* * *

Half a world away, on a small island, a woman awoke long hair dragging up from the pillow as she sat up and wrapped her arms around herself, digging her fingers into the thin fabric of her nightgown.

"Where," her voice sounded thick with disuse and rusty with sleep. Her eyes were far from clear. Deep green markings ran from her right eye back into her hair.

"Hush, my Poisyn, and rest. Time will come soon enough for you to truly wake." The man stood at the side of the bed, his face lost in the shadows. Even as she turned to look at him, sleep was already once again overtaking her senses. She landed back on the pillow with a soft thump, asleep once again.

Apocalypse stood over her as she slept, a smile on his face. Soon she would remember nothing of that former life. Soon she would be as War, solely his horseman without past or dividing loyalty. Then he could truly begin his work.

**THE END**


End file.
